Ryan Bartelmay releases debut novel

October 13, 2013|By Courtney Crowder

Author Ryan Bartelmay poses for a portrait on Main St. in Morton, Ill.. The setting for his is book"Onward Toward What We're Going Toward" was inspired by growing up in the small town. (Daryl Wilson, Chicago Tribune)

Ryan Bartelmay's writing lingered with Elizabeth Clementson, publisher at Ig Publishing, for about a year after Bartelmay had submitted his collection of short stories. While Clementson thought the collection wasn't right for Ig (by Bartelmay's own admission the pieces' abnormally long word count put them in a short story "no man's land"), she said she couldn't shake the hold that Bartelmay's in-depth narratives and off-beat voice had on her.

"He is a very engrossing writer who can really pull out complicated, interesting situations and yet there's always an element of passion and emotionality that really connects you as a reader," Clementson said, speaking from her office in Brooklyn. "He has a way of creating very compelling characters and his sentences are very strong and at the same time he pulls you into this incredibly emotional backdrop."

Finally, curiosity got the better of Clementson and she tapped out an email to Bartelmay asking if he had finished that novel he mentioned the first time they met at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference. He hadn't.

Bartelmay, an Andersonville resident, had been working for a decade on his novel about relationships in a small town in middle America. Clementson's plea gave him drive to finish the book. Released in August, Bartelmay's novel, "Onward Toward What We're Going Toward," is a dark comedy spanning five decades that revolves around the lies and love between three couples living in Middleville, a fictional place based on Bartelmay's hometown of Morton.

Sipping coffee at Starbucks, Bartelmay, an ultra-hip 38-year-old with the muted green newsboy cap to prove it, said the book sprang from stories he started as a graduate student at Columbia University. As he dealt with the intensity of living in New York and taking classes at an Ivy League school, Bartelmay said he started to miss small town life and began thinking about the circuitous route his life had taken.

"I was writing a lot of short stories that had to do with central Illinois and small towns and the people that lived in them," said Bartelmay, who is now the dean of general education at Kendall College. "I was trying to figure out things about myself, and figure out things about people and people's flaws, and how people end up in the places they end up."

The characters in Bartelmay's book are damaged, yet well-meaning and (mostly) well intentioned. The complexity of each character is revealed through his use of consciousness; he allows readers to live inside the head of each of his protagonists for pages on end. At its heart, the novel is about conflicting points of view and how these characters convince themselves that their opinions are right.

The abundant use of interior thought made sense to Bartelmay, who believes many people spend the majority of their time thinking circular thoughts.

"What struck and surprised me the most was the depth and generosity he extends to his characters," MacArthur fellow Dinaw Mengestu wrote in an email. Mengestu and Bartelmay got to know each other during graduate school. "There's a complicated integrity to the world Ryan has created, and he brings that world to life without sentimentality and without the cynical detachment that might have easily trailed a young novelist from New York. "

While not sentimental, Bartelmay spent a decade making sure each character was relatable both because of and despite their flaws.

"The characters he creates are often lovable (screw)-ups," fellow writer and Columbia graduate Mike Harvkey wrote in an email, "and he brings them to life so well, with such heart and tenderness, that the reader can't help but love them. In many cases this means that the reader will end up caring for someone they would have run from in real life."

For Bartelmay, that was the plan all along: "We are all constantly making decisions and we are all struggling to try to do better. I hope readers see a little bit of themselves in the trying and the struggle."